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By Godswill Michael
At least 1,194 people were killed and an estimated 11.1 million displaced across Nigeria in March 2026, underscoring the deepening scale of political violence and insecurity nationwide, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
The figures, drawn from real-time tracking of violent incidents, reflect a troubling spread of attacks involving state forces, armed groups, and criminal networks, with civilians bearing the brunt.
Nigeria, often described as Africa’s largest economy, continues to grapple with overlapping security crises, ranging from insurgency in the northeast to banditry in the northwest, farmer-herder conflicts in the Middle Belt, and cult-related violence in urban centres.
ACLED data accessed by Pointblanknews.com on Saturday shows that Zamfara State recorded the highest number of politically violent incidents in March with 68 cases, followed by Katsina State (65), Sokoto State (30), and Benue State (27).
At the lower end of the spectrum, Abia State, Bayelsa State, and Gombe State recorded only one incident each within the period.
The concentration of violence in the northwest and parts of the Middle Belt highlights persistent governance and security gaps, particularly in rural communities.
Across the country, incidents ranged from isolated killings to coordinated attacks involving insurgent groups.
On March 20, unidentified gunmen killed a civilian and injured four others in the Shararrar Pipe area of Katsina town, Katsina State.
In Lagos, a cult-related killing was reported on March 15 in Ikotun, Alimosho area, where a man was shot dead by suspected cultists in an attack reportedly preceded by chants.
Meanwhile, in the northeast, Maiduguri witnessed multiple security incidents. A suicide bombing on March 16 attributed to Boko Haram killed at least 15 civilians, while separate clashes between Nigerian security forces and Islamic State West Africa Province were recorded in the same period.
Security forces—comprising the military, police, Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), and local vigilantes, reportedly repelled an attempted ISWAP attack on the outskirts of Maiduguri, though casualty figures were not immediately available.
Ladd Serwat, Africa Senior Analyst at ACLED, warned that mass abductions remain a defining feature of the conflict landscape.
“The mass abduction of more than 300 civilians , including women and children, by Islamist militants in Nigeria’s Borno State is a stark reminder of the chronic insecurity in the country’s northeast,” she said.
According to him, while multiple extremist factions are expanding their footprint across the Sahel, most Islamist violence in Nigeria remains concentrated in Borno.
He noted that large-scale kidnappings—often targeting schools and rural communities—have become a strategic tool for coercion and revenue generation by armed groups.
President Bola Tinubu, in an address to the National Assembly in December 2025, pledged a comprehensive overhaul of Nigeria’s security architecture.
“We will fundamentally change how we confront terrorism and violent crimes,” the president said, vowing to target not only perpetrators but also financiers of terrorism, banditry, and other forms of organised violence. However, the rate of violence is on the increase.
The persistence of violence across multiple regions, despite ongoing military operations, suggests that a purely kinetic approach may be insufficient without parallel investments in governance, intelligence, and community-based conflict resolution.